By
Sarah Kershaw
STAFF WRITER
Just after 4 p.m. one recent afternoon, the call
from a man going on a blind date came into the
matchmaker’s office, a tiny room cluttered with
Rolodexes and file cabinets containing descriptions
and phone numbers of lonely people looking for
mates and friends.
The man had stood up his date during a panic
attack, leaving her waiting at the Jewish Museum
in Manhattan for 45 minutes. The woman, knowing
that these things happen, gave him another chance
and invited him for a home-cooked lunch at her
place in Brooklyn.
He agreed but then canceled again, when the idea
of taking the subway from his home in Manhattan
to her house made him too anxious.
As
she listened to the story, Berna Case glanced
at her business partner, Alice Cohen, and then
told the man, a 41-year-old schizophrenic, "Don’t
do anything you’re not comfortable with. It will
all work out. We promise. We’ll fix it."
And
the matchmakers, who run a dating and friendship
service for people with schizophrenia and severe
disorders out of a spare bedroom in Cohen’s New
Hyde Park home, did just that. After a flurry
of phone calls between New Hyde Park, Manhattan
and Brooklyn, Cohen and Case arranged another
date, at Ratner’s, a restaurant on the Lower East
Side of Manhattan. Now, the man and the woman
are still dating.
But
much to the dismay of about 200 clients in Queens
and Long Island, Alice Cohen’s Friendship Network,
which has survived for eight years mostly on small
donations and Cohen’s checkbook, is planning to
close down next month.
Cohen,
a retired furniture store manager who lives with
her husband, has received some donations from
families of her clients – enough to make it through
June – and she is making a last-ditch appeal for
public funding to Nassau and Queens mental health
officials. She does not take a salary.
Applications
for funding for the program, connected with the
National Alliance for the Mentally Ill’s Queens-Nassau
Chapter, are pending in both counties' mental
health departments. Cohen said she could run the
program on about $100,000 a year for such things
as an office, salary, telephone, supplies and
activities, and she has asked for about $50,000
from each county.
The
unusual program - the only one of its kind in
the nation - has drawn praise from mental health
professionals who see it as a way to shake the
solitude and stigma of schizophrenia and severe
mood disorders. But it has never succeeded in
securing public money.
Howard
Sovronsky, acting commissioner of the Nassau County
Department of Mental Health, Mental Retardation
and Developmental Disabilities, said the Friendship
Network was competing for money with about 60
other programs applying for "limited funds."
While
the program, which is open for a fee to high-functioning
clients who are in treatment, is "unorthodox
and untraditional," Sovronsky said he supports
the "goals of the Friendship Network."
But
he added that he was hesitant to support funding
a program that also serves clients in Queens unless
he was sure the Nassau County money was going
to be used only to serve Nassau County clients.
Cohen said about half the current clients are
from Queens and half from Nassau, but she has
several others in other parts of New York City
and Westchester.
As
Cohen - part cupid, part surrogate mother and
part off-hours therapist - awaits word on the
funding, news of the Friendship Network's possible
demise has prompted clients and their families
to barrage her with emotional letters, e-mail
and telephone calls.
"A
person does not realize how miserable they were
until they have some happiness to compare it to,"
wrote one former client, enclosing a check for
$100.
The
client, a Queens man who suffers from depression
and spoke on the condition of anonymity, met his
wife through the network, after going on several
blind dates Cohen arranged, marrying for the first
time at age 53. His wife, also 53 when they married
about two years ago, hadn't had a date in 20 years
- since her schizophrenia set in - when she joined
the network.
Cohen,
who combs through the applications before making
a match, thought they might be compatible. The
first date was at her place, and he stayed for
seven hours.
"We
listened to classical music," said the woman
who also asked not to be identified. "And
I realized how painfully lonely I had been."
About
a year and a half later, they were married – the
fifth wedding to come out of the Friendship Network
since it started in 1991. A seventh wedding is
scheduled for September.
Referring
to the first initial of his wife’s name, E,, the
Queens man said,
"I
kid my wife that there is B.E. and A.E. – that’s
before and after her – because things changed
so much."
For
many of the clients, what made them able to go
on a date - or leave their house for bowling,
tennis or other activities organized by the Friendship
Network - was knowing they could tell their new
companions the truth. Dating was hard enough –
impossible for many of them until they met people
they could talk to about being on medication,
having insomnia, being afraid to ride the subway
or scared of crowds, several said.
Tom,
48, a Long Island client for the past seven years
who spoke on the condition that his last name
not be used, has gone on several dates, including
one that lead to a one and a half year relationship,
and made many acquaintances.
Tom,
who has had schizophrenia most of his life, recalled
the first date with the woman he went out with
for one and a half years, at Nathan's in Coney
Island for hot dogs.
"She
was the first person I'd met who takes the same
medication," he said. "I thought, This
has got to be it. I must be dreaming."
For
the next date, they went to Jones Beach, but she
had a panic attack and had to go home.
He
called her the next day, "just to see how
she was doing," he said. "She liked
that."
Cohen's
family member, has met people through her network
and had some personal inspiration for starting
the network in 1991.
"I
know I would love to do something to help young
people have friends," she said.
Most
of Cohen's clients know her only by telephone,
and she answers calls at all hours of the day
and night. Case, a neighbor and former divorce
lawyer, joined the network in 1993.
The
network charges a $250 fee for a sixth-month membership,
but Cohen often waives it, because many of her
clients cannot afford it. All clients must be
volunteering or employed if they are not in full-time
treatment.
The
clients must provide the network with a release
from their doctor. Clients fill out a detailed
application that includes questions about hobbies,
smoking, drinking, weight, diets, employment,
education and medication. They include a photo,
but only Cohen and Case see the photograph.
Cohen
has a computer program that matches the applications,
but sometimes she rejects them and makes her own
decisions, usually mulling over the possibilities
with Case.
The
duo also tackle the trouble spots together, as
they did that afternoon with the man from Manhattan
who had stood the woman from Brooklyn.
After
the man hung up, reassured that he would yet meet
the woman, Case called the woman.
"I
just had a call from a friend of yours,"
Case said. "He kind of has a little anxiety
about coming into Brooklyn, but he said he would
be happy to meet you at Ratner's."
As
the woman was giving, her answer ("fine"),
Cohen waved at Case to get her attention and whispered,
"He thinks she’s very nice!"
Case
nodded and said into the phone, "He thinks
you’re very nice!"
She
hung up and dialed the man to tell him the date
was on.
